Vicious Cycles Make You Laugh
by Voca
Summary: The world is dark, and I never belonged at Hogwarts - rivers of blood pulling continents apart. This is mad darkness and chilling reality. This is lovinghatingwanting. This is... us.
1. Almost Touched By Devils

**Vicious Cycles Make You Laugh**

**(almost touched by devils)**

There is something strange, and almost heartbreaking, about watching the world crumble around you, knowing you can't do anything about it.

It's even worse when, perhaps, you could have.

**. … .**

It was my third day straight without sleep. Or – maybe it had been longer. It was hard to tell when everything seemed to be running together.

I reached across the table for my black coffee mug, filled to the brim with – predictably – jet black coffee. I loathed the taste of it, bitter as an old lover, but nowadays I seemed to live on it.

I could barely even stand to blink. Every time I closed my eyes, even for a fraction of a second, I was plagued with visions of death and blood and chaos and darkness.

Absently I ran my index finger over the inner part of my left wrist. Three years, and it was still there, made even blacker in contrast to my pallid skin. A constant reminder of what my life would have been. Should have been.

And what was I now? Nothing. The Dark Lord had fallen, and the Malfoys had tumbled into obsolescence along with him. There was no place for Death-Eaters in this new era except Azkaban.

"Mr. Malfoy?"

I damn near jumped out of my skin at the sound of my own name, whirling around to see a nurse standing in the doorway. I knew her well. After all, she'd come to see me every morning for the past three years, ever since I'd been condemned to this hell.

She offered me a reassuring smile, to which I returned a condescending sneer. A few stray auburn curls were tumbling out of her ponytail and falling in ringlets around her slender face. She could have been pretty had she not been tainted with Muggle blood.

"I've got your pills, Mr. Malfoy," she pressed on.

"Keep your goddamn pills," I growled. "There's nothing fucking wrong with me."

The nurse sighed a little, trying to keep calm. "I'm not going to fight with you-"

"Get. The. Fuck. Out!"

Something flickered in her pale green eyes, something almost like fear, for the briefest of moments. I could almost feel the dark magic flowing through my veins, so seductive, so tantalizing. It teased me with a single touch that left me begging and begging for more and more.

Someday… someday…

I let out a slow hiss of a breath, opening my silvery eyes. By then the nurse had fled, leaving nothing in her wake but a tiny capsule we both knew I wouldn't give a second thought.

**. … .**

As I often did when I was given too much time to think, I let my mind begin to wander backward, to when times were simpler.

Or at least they seemed that way. But in all honesty, had they ever truly been simple?

All my life I had relished in the envy people felt towards me. They loved me and hated me and wanted me all at once and I adored every sultry glance that came my way.

I found it easy to hide myself and maybe even my life behind a façade. As long as I was contented, everyone that surrounded me could breathe a sigh of relief as well.

I had never really belonged at Hogwart's. I had always, _always_ been destined for greater things. Darker, perhaps, but greater still.

I would get them, somehow. One day I would be free of this place, and I would move on to greater, darker things indeed.

* * *

**Author's Note:  
This first chapter was written by lostsoul512. We're doing a collaboration, isn't that lovely? The next chapter is mine, and then hers, then so on... yes. :D **


	2. Control And The Loss Thereof

**Vicious Cycles Make You Laugh**

**(control and the loss thereof)**

In every family, there's a place where things fall apart. For me, that happened an eternity ago, before I even went to that godforsaken school. _Hogwarts_, their houses and their superficial tendencies.

I never wanted to be in Slytherin, but the house was a _part _of me; my parents had lavished me in green and silver and they expected it, and that ridiculous talking hat expected it, too. I was the princess, I guess. I had the boyfriend everyone expected me to have – and surely, we were meant to still be together, but… ugh. I don't even want to think about it anymore. I tried to distance myself, (_yeah right, like you could ever really do that_) by throwing myself at him, making him even more my _betrothed_. God, the Purebloods wanted purebloods wanted – oh, I'm babbling again.

The entire system was flawed; sure, I believed in the Dark Lord, and I probably wanted even a taste of his power – but really, _really_, the magical hierarchy sickened me.

I was by no means the sneering, disgusting little slut everyone thought me to be. Sure, I was gorgeous, with long legs and stick-skinniness, and black hair kept nice and clean except for during the holidays (no one ever gave a damn during the summer hols, except that I was always at Malfoy Manor with Draco over Christmas. That was _another expectation – and I HATE IT._)

I had my morals, and my principles. But the world took them all away from me – and now I'm here, in this place. St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries – my bloody ass. This was nothing more than a mental hospital, a looney bin – the place where that ridiculous _Lovegood_ belonged with her crazy father.

I hope they got what was coming to them. They deserved to be here, not me. There's nothing wrong with me.

_There's nothing wr–nothing is right. _

_Nothing is wrong, but nothing's _right_ either._

I slept – _really slept_ – for the first time in weeks.

**. … .**

"Pansy? Miss Parkinson?"

Despite the cliché, I didn't wake and bolt into a sitting position in a pool of sweat. My eyes don't open right away, and when they did I gazed for a five minute eternity at the blinding white ceiling through glazed, half-lidded eyes.

I didn't answer, that must've worried the orderly.

Hell, I was _sure_ (deadly sure) that I'd worried the orderly.

My eyes closed as soon as I heard her footsteps across the carpet, and I held my breath. When I felt the nurse's cold hand on my bare shoulder, then by forehead, I screamed – but not because of the cold. After being in a complete dreamless wasteland for no more than half an hour (_in weeks_), the coming darkness behind my eyelids became what it always was: a complete dreamless _Hell_.

There were monsters, great scaly things that seldom had heads, like those disturbing Inferi Snape taught about when she was a sixth year – and worse. There were unimaginable monsters residing in lands built up upon thousands of (broken) dead bodies, rivers of blood pulling continents apart.

_But I couldn't pry my_ _eyes open_.

"Sh-Shit!" The orderly's voice sliced (casually) through my blindness-induced haze, despite the hyperventilation wracking her body. "Uh – Nurse Blackroot? W-We've got a bit of a situation here!" She wasn't speaking casually at all; in fact, she was yelling _and_ hyperventilating.

Quite the difficult feat.

I was beginning to hear my heart pounding in my throat and my ears – the only sound in the (broken) dead world seemed to be the petulant drumming that kept me alive (_yeah right – like you call this living_).

It was fading.

Or maybe _I_ was the one fading.

Over my breaking eardrums I heard some sort of incantation, and it all faded to a dull roar, a dull grey. I floated for a long while, not bothering to come down, almost pleasantly deaf… until I came down.

**. … . **

When I came down, I _crashed_, I _burned_. It was dark, but the moon cut silver slashes against my eyes, and I screamed – or tried to. My throat was on fire, and I gurgled, reaching blindly across myself for something – anything – liquid. My fingers brushed against glass, and I sat up, turning away from the hated light and bringing the glass to my lips – I don't know what the bitter liquid was, or even what it looked like, but I drank it like a healing ambrosia despite the scalding heat it produced.

When I came fully to my senses, I spluttered for a moment before vomiting over the side of the bed, green eyes slamming shut – and there was a light tapping on my door before a cheery call of "Checks!" reverberated through my ears.

"Oh my – Merlin's hat –! Are you alright, dear?" The new orderly, a pleasing young woman, knelt on my bed, a pleasantly cool hand on my forehead. I nodded and turned away before she could register my temperature.

"I just drank a little too much, too fast," I mutter hoarsely, looking at the wall, the wall that reflected the moonlight through the darkness like a prism. I'm more than surprised at myself, expecting nothing more than a few (broken) words rather than a fully coherent sentence.

The orderly smiled gently, and then nodded, "Do you want me to get you something to ease your nerves? Your pulse is irregular."

How she caught that is up to me, but I shrugged, "I don't know if it'll do any good… but it sure as hell can't make me any worse."

The nurse smiled knowingly, then left. During that time, I slept into a day (night) dream that scared me to death, then brought me to life again to recommit the homicide.

It was the same as before (it was _always_ the same as before), except – except it wasn't. There was one subtle little difference that scared me more than anything else could: _him_.

The pale, disgusting creature that loved the Dark Arts more than anything else, one who would give up half his life to have a taste of that higher power. _Draco Malfoy_, and all the expectations that followed, haunted my dreams.

I screamed when I saw a shadow cast across my bed, then inhaled, with difficulty, exhaled, calmly, and again, when the lights flickered on, lighting the white room. The nurse handed me a steaming potion, then patted my shoulder in an almost motherly gesture.

"That coffee does terrible wonders to you when you're sick, dear. I wouldn't touch it again if you end up sedated again."

Terrible wonders? Ha. That bitch didn't know a thing about terrible wonders. If she knew – yeah right. (_like you could ever really _know_ that_.) She'd never knew.

No one must ever know…

Hell. Who the hell was I to know what a motherly gesture is, anyway? Let alone an almost motherly gesture.

I drained the potion, quickly feeling a warmth spread from my stomach outward.

Again, for the second time in an evening, I slept – _really_ slept.


	3. A Change In The Winds

**Vicious Cycles Make You Laugh  
(a change in the winds)**

I never really asked for my life to be over.

…Then again, I never really asked for it to begin.

Days crept by and I felt as though they were desperately trying to leave me behind. My only window was the window to the past within me, and every single non-existent God knew that was the last thing I wanted to see.

At what point does habit become routine? At what point does routine become obsession? At what point does obsession become insanity?

My thoughts ran through my head: on and on and on and on and in circles. All the while I could hear their voices – calling, calling; beckoning me always.

Oh, how I wanted to go to them more than anything, more now than ever. I would have given anything I had – which, nowadays of course was next to nothing – for just one last taste of that darkness cultivating within me.

I had been raised to be evil, born and bred in hatred. My father had once been the Dark Lord's closest Death-Eater; in fact, he was his favorite little pet. My father had sold his soul for protection and power and his insatiable lust for all things terrible.

That was the path I was to be led down as well.

There had been nothing to distract me from it, either. I lived and breathed the Dark Arts. And – with every spell I uttered and curse I cast, I could feel my soul and my heart and my _very essence of life_ withering away.

Nothing to distract me – except –

– except _her_.

She was perfect in every way, or almost every, except perhaps her short temper or her tendencies to fall into vicious cycles of self-loathing. She loved me and hated me and wanted me all the same as everyone else, and I wanted her back with every ounce of my being. Could you call it love? If so, it was the closest to the damn thing I ever came.

It was an _obsession_.

Yes, I wanted her… but I couldn't – wouldn't – couldn't – have her. It was not a part of the carefully constructed plan that was my life. Too many things were woven into our lives; too many things were ripping us apart.

When I closed my eyes now, I could almost still feel her presence, her oh-so-sensual touch; I could still almost feel myself moving through her –

– I shivered. Some memories should most definitely be left alone.

_Pansy_. I dared to whisper her name. It had become foreign to my lips. I couldn't help but wonder: Where was she now? What was she doing? And did I ever, _ever_ cross her mind?

**. … .**

"Got your pills, Mr. Malfoy." The nurse's familiarly peppy voice sounded from the doorway behind me.

"Oh, thank you," I muttered sarcastically. "Leave it where you always do."

A slight sigh escaped her lips. "Draco, the doctor is concerned that you aren't, uh, making enough progress. He's asked me to monitor your pill intake."

I turned my head a little to look at her with narrowed eyes, letting any and absolutely _all_ venom within me seep into that one solitary gaze. I was quite certain that had I looked into a mirror I would have seen my father staring back. There was a power rushing through me – now, more than ever. After all, I was still a Malfoy.

"Someday, I'll have magic again, and you will be the first person I use the Killing Curse on."

The nurse dropped her tray to the floor with a deafening clatter, made even louder by the typical silence that reverberated throughout my prison-hospital. While her eyes had gone wide, my own expression was grim. In a frenzy of shock she darted out of the room – probably to report me. Tomorrow I would surely be strapped in a straightjacket.

Or just maybe… I wouldn't be here.

For in all her haste, the nurse had left the door wide open.


	4. Memories Of Never

**Vicious Cycles Make You Laugh  
(memories of never)**

I stare out the window for the longest time before I heard the usual gentle knock on my door, followed by the nurse's chirp: "Miss Parkinson! I've got your medicine."

I groaned, eyes narrowing as I turned. "I don't need it."

The nurse smiles sadly before making a _tch_ing sound. "I'm afraid you have to, miss," she murmured, coming to stand behind me hand on my shoulder. "It's a long story, but it seems like you and another patient haven't been – er – doing as well as we hoped. So we're monitoring your pill intake."

I turned to stare at her, green eyes narrowed, and flicked a stray lock of hair from my eyes in an elegant gesture, and rpse, "Why? Why the _Hell_ are you even bothering? If I weren't in this bloody place, I wouldn't be crazy at all!"

The nurse snorted, laying the capsules on my nightstand, "I don't think you're crazy. Not at all."

I glared at her for a moment, "Leave me. Now. I'm tired… let me rest."

"But –"

"I said _leave_." My voice broke on the last word, and I turn back to the window. "I don't need the medication. I'll – I'll be fine." Whatever that nurse said about me not being crazy might mean, it doesn't matter now. All that matters is that I need to get out of this place, and find a way to do so.

Suddenly, a scream caught in my throat, and my eyes slammed closed before opening again. I blinked rapidly – "Nurse –? Chass! _Chass_. I can't see.I CAN'T FUCKING SEE." My fingers ran over my face, waving in front of my (broken) blank eyes, nails gently running over my face. "Help me – Chass!" I backed against my bed, collapsing beside it in a heap, writhing and screaming like I was unsure what was going on.

I was beginning to see things – again, that was no lie. There were dark skies and continents built upon bodies and rivers – no, now _oceans_ of blood ripping apart the world, flashes of blinding green lights and _ohmygodjustenditnow. _Oh –

"Oh – my – Merlin's beard, hang on, Pansy. I'll – I'll go get something for you!"

"Hurry…" I whimper, eyes squeezing tight, shoulders shaking from suppressed sobs as I heard the click of a high-heeled shoe in the hallway beyond my door. Slowly, ever so slowly, I raise myself into a sitting position, leaning against my bed and breathing hard. Even more slowly, my eyes open and scan the room as far as I can see, without turning.

Nothing but the white room and diagonal slices of even brighter white.

I rise slightly, onto my knees, and turn, watching the hems of the nurse's white robes lift off the ground as she turned into the hall. A delicate smile graced my lips, and I stood up. A chuckle caught in my throat as I rose shakily to my feet and took my first hesitant steps towards _freedom_ (the thing _lovedhated_wanted – all at once). All at _once_.

The room was too silent after my outburst, and as soon as I was free of it, I ran until I couldn't breathe, or – perhaps I heard the footsteps before my own pulse drowned out all thoughts, all at _once_. When I heard the footsteps and shouts, it took all I had within me not to cry out as I dove face-first into the closest doorway – it was surprisingly unlocked. Even more surprisingly, _it was a cupboard_. Not some lousy broom cupboard like there had been at Hogwarts, or some tea-cupboard in Trelawney's room (God, I had hated that woman and her subject with a loathing I saved only for Mudbloods and Harry Potter) but what looked like a _wand_ cupboard.

There were shelves, rows upon rows of shelves, with boxes and cases, and even more interestingly, a case marked _new arrivals_. Now – don't get me wrong. I know that I'd been in this place, even if I didn't know how long it had been. I'd hazard a pretty good bet that somewhere in that case was a wand marked _p. parkinson._

Slowly, I dragged myself through the spaces between the racks of wands, and stared at the display, eagerly devouring the names. _Donaldson, _no, _Gresh_, no, _Lynch_, definitely not, _Malfoy_, no, _Mosima – WAIT._ Malfoy? My fingers reached, pressing against the glass like a lover, staring at the tag. _d. malfoy. _I gulp, then, without a word, and without even looking to see if my wand is also in the case, smash the glass with my fist.

It didn't hurt nearly as much as I expected it to, and while I watched the grass splinted and eventually slid from the shelf in (broken) tears, I caught sight of my own name. Parkinson. I hesitate before grabbing my wand and Draco's, the wood of some forsaken ash tree feeling beyond familiar to my bleeding fingers, the hawthorn – not so much.

I let out a smile and a laugh that did not fit the gloom of the cupboard. After all, later –

– later, I would have to _find_ Draco –

– later, when they would all ask me what happened – and they _would_ – I would have to lie. I would have to say that I never loved him, that it was all a ruse, a three-year crush that never got past scribbling his name on the back of my potions notebook. But I would always mix a little truth into it. Hell. I existed outside of love, in all of the space that those four tiny letters could never fill, where the people I couldn't live without were the ones who'd save me or kill me, or both.

_All at _once.


	5. Sunlight and Shadows

**Vicious Cycles Make You Laugh  
(sunlight and shadows)**

"_Do you believe in second chances? In forgiveness?" The eager eyed boy looked up at his father desperately, waiting for his answer. Because his answer was the only one, his opinion was the only one that mattered._

"_There are no second chances for us," his father answered coldly. "We do not need them, for we do not make mistakes."_

_The boy was less convinced. Certainly he had made his share of mistakes. He knew that his father's words were true, in a sense, though. For them, mistakes could be lethal._

**. … .**

I shook away the memories of a life once-lived (a life I could never return to) and focused on the corridors I found myself wandering. This place, it seemed, served even more purposes than predicted. For not only was it a hospital and a prison, it was also a labyrinth. I moved like a ghost – I was certainly pale enough and possibly even _dead_ enough – as I navigated my way through the halls, wishing looking searching for an escape.

An ear splitting sound broke through the silence; I froze in place. It was close, but it seemed miles and miles away. I slowed my steps and my breathing as I pressed forward and reached a corner. I rounded it cautiously, but obviously it wasn't careful enough. Because then I was crashing into someone, and I knew that it was all over, and that I would be locked into a cage even more guarded than the one that I had just broken free of.

**. … .**

Some dreams are too good to be real. Some dreams are too good to even be _dreamed_.

It had been three years. _Three fucking years_ dreaming of the day that I would see those emerald eyes that plagued my dreams. But I had never fathomed it happening like this. Not here. Not now.

(some dreams come true in the least expected way.)

Pansy Parkinson looked at me as though I was a stranger. I felt a knife being driven through my chest. Frozen. I was frozen, and I didn't think I would ever be able to move again. Her haunting face and tantalizing body were shackles, and whether she loved it or hated it or wanted it, I was her prisoner. Even now, when she was a stranger looking at me like I was stranger, I was her prisoner.

"Draco." My name fell from her lips softly, murmured like midnight exchanges between lovers. A shiver rushed up my spine.

All I said – all I _could _say was this: "Yeah."

Not brilliant, but I never claimed to be a poet.

Pansy stared openly for another minute, and then she seemed to fall back into herself and remember the circumstances we found ourselves under. There were a million things I wanted to say/ask/do to her. I pushed them all aside. I was too close to freedom to let it slip away now.

Pansy extended her arm to hand me a fragile box of the deepest burgundy velvet. Our fingers brushed lightly as she did. I opened it up and lovingly extracted the sleek hawthorn-and-unicorn wand I thought I'd lost for…forever. _Now… _the voice within me whispered. Now was the time. Darkness was practically radiating from me. Pansy's eyes were wide as she watched me, watched the seduced expression slide onto my mouth.

And the voice within me sighed in ecstasy. _Welcome home_.

There was no dramatic break-out scene. I was almost disappointed at the easiness of it.

**. … .**

The sun was blindingly bright, an utter contradiction to the magic moving through me now. And the thoughts – oh, the thoughts, all of death and blood and glory and _her_. Always the one thing to get in the way. I could feel her presence as she followed me like she always had. I longed to know what she was thinkingfeelingwanting. I let myself believe that I crossed her mind from time to time.

I scowled at the barren landscape around me. I needed a plan. Planning had never been my strong point – I always dove headfirst into orders. After all, I'd been bred to follow without question or self-preservation.

Finally I swallowed my pride and turned to face Pansy. She was too desirable for her own good. But no, I was getting distracted. "Well, I fear this is where my brilliance runs out," I muttered. "So I hope that you've thought ahead to this point."

Pansy looked as though she was biting off some snippy remark. As though after all this time separated, she was still _scared_ of displeasing me. Scared of _me_. "I suppose we could try to Apparate. We're pretty far out; they might not have wards up here."

It was so blatantly obvious. Simplicity had never been my thing – I tended to lean towards the extravagant… It was nothing more than another decadence, drilled into me from birth. Pureblood equals power equals privilege equals more power.

"Alright," I replied. "Take my hand."

Pansy slipped her slender fingers into my own. Her mere touch awoke ancient feelings and memories in me. Memories I knew should stay buried deepdeepdeep inside. My eyes closed and I filled my mind up with a single image, a picture so vivid that I could feel myself being there.

Then I was moving through space and time and all the unreachable places in between and I ceased to exist for but a moment. I _was_ existence, the very essence of it.

When my feet touched the ground once again, I breathed a sigh of relief. Considering it was my first time Apparating in over three years (_three fucking years_), I had done pretty damn well.

Pansy let out a tiny laugh, letting an easy smile slide onto her face. "We're free," she whispered hoarsely, wonder and amazement and _existence_ in her voice and her eyes, tiny whispers leaking into her smile. "We're actually free."

I flashed a smile of my own before pausing to take in the environment around me. It was much the same as the picture I'd created in my mind- thick bushes of the darkest green and cobblestone paths and the wrought-iron gate that locked out the rest of the world.

Malfoy Manor.

**. … .**

"It looks the same," Pansy murmured, staring up at its looming vastness.

"Some things never change," I groused. Pansy nodded curtly.

I reached down to take her hand once again, longing the comfort it provided me. All around me I felt the ghosts of my past, their claws raking at me, trying to drag me with them into the black abyss. They would tear me apart if they could, for I had failed as a Malfoy. My one and only duty was to serve and protect the Dark Lord. Despite the fact that I had barely even played a role, he was dead, and so I had failed. Now the Malfoy name that had been built up and up over years and years, our perfectpureblood was tainted, not with _bad_ blood but with a shame we could never escape. In a thousand years, people would look at a Malfoy and… and _know._ We had sold our souls and the souls of our heirs for years and years and years to come – all in the name of the Dark Lord. We could not succeed even at that. Blackness would forever be woven into our history.

Some things never change.


	6. Falling Fast, Hitting Harder

A/N: hi there! Lostsoul512 speaking here. I'm the co-author of this lovely little story. Anyway, to avoid confusion, I just wanted you all to know that this is in fact another Draco chapter. If you don't like it, then don't read it. You'll be missing out.

* * *

**Vicious Cycles Make You Laugh  
(falling fast, hitting harder)**

I was very hollow indeed as we ascended the steps. Haunting memories plagued me, memories of times and things that I could never get back.

Pansy's hand in my own was a constant reassurance. What twist of fate had brought her back to me now, this single creature of which I was capable of loving? And more importantly, what twists of fate would rip her from me?

I didn't bother to knock - who knocked at their own house? - grateful the door was unlocked. I led Pansy into the great marble foyer. She had been silent since our arrival, lost within whatever hell unfolded in her mind. She had been so scarred, so damaged by the war. Much like me, she had lost everything. We had all very much counted on the rise of the Dark Lord. His failure- our failure- had led us into recluse and cessation. Now we were left to wander aimlessly in the shadow of the past. It was our fate, I supposed.

I looked around the house in a quiet contemplation of sorts. Standing here now, so many years later, I saw that I was not very different at all. In the tangles of my mind I found that I had always imagined in it ruins, just like everything else in my world. But here I saw that it was the same indulgent image that my life had been founded on, so much grandeur and pretending.

In that solitary moment, I found that everything from my former life, the life of bloodlines, greed, and a lust for something so unattainable, came rushing back into me. It transfused with the unshakeable darkness moving through me, creating something much, much worse. Everything I had ever loved or wanted or hated was swarming my mind, tempting me. And I thought, I still wanted them. I still wanted them very, very much.

"Who's there?"

A sharp voice from just beyond the archway from the foyer brought me back to reality. I tightened my grip of Pansy's hand, moving my free one to my left pocket, where my wand rested. Even the slightest brush against it caused a surge of power to come over me.

The figured entered then, and all at once I felt my defenses drop, replaced by more emotions than I could decipher. For they stood Bellatrix LeStrange, my aunt.

A gasp broke from her plush lips, her acid-like eyes going wide in shock. "Draco? That you?"

I managed to keep my own face perfectly expressionless. "Yes," I replied shortly. "Who would you expect it to be? I very much doubt you get frequent visitors."

Flames danced wildly in my aunt's feral eyes, flickering with a mixture of fury and loathing and… something else.

Praise.

When she spoke again, her tone was still biting. She came towards us in leisurely steps, ever the predator stalking her prey. Now that was us.

"So the prodigal son returns," she said slowly. "After he so loyally abandoned us. After he left us to die."

_I didn't leave_, I thought. _I wouldn't have left. I would have fought to the death for the Dark Lord._ But it seemed my vocals were no longer working.

"Yes," she continued, a malicious grin spreading over her lips. "You left us."

"Shut up," I finally spat. "Just shut up. You don't know what you're talking about."

Bellatrix was so close now I could see the individual emerald flecks in her hate-filled eyes. What had driven this shattered soul so far over the edge, forced her into the depths of insanity [though of course insanity was all relative and therefore did not exist]? I doubted I would ever know. But I thought that the history of Bellatrix LeStrange would be written in the blood of the innocent.

"You're a coward, Draco. A pathetic excuse of a Death Eater. You were never destined for our world."

In a single shriek I had unleashed all the emotions I'd been holding in. Then the hand that wasn't still gripping – crushing - Pansy's whipped out my wand until it was pointed right at my aunt's heart.

I thought that at that moment I sort of slipped out of myself, and I watched the scene around me as though I was not a part of it. There was the blackened soul who was doomed to spend forever longing for the days when she had held sway over others. She would lead a façade for the rest of her miserable life. She would never forget because she would not allow herself. Then there was a second woman, who in many ways was still very much a girl. She was silent, her pleading eyes locked on the boy, the boy who also would never forget, but thought that maybe this girl could help him heal.

A maniacal laugh from Bellatrix snapped me back into my own body.

"How precious," she sneered. "Are you threatening me, Draco?"

I scowled at her. "It's not so much a threat as it is a promise."

I felt a slight tug on my arm; a quick glance from out of the corner of my eye revealed Pansy, staring up at me with tear-rimmed eyes. I'd almost forgotten her presence. Every inch of her was pleading, begging me to lower my wand. You don't want to do this, those eyes said.

How very wrong she was.

"You really are pathetic," Bellatrix derided. "Just like your father."

Those four words were all it took. I had been balanced precariously on the edge for some time now, and those four words were all it took to push me over. Without thinking, I opened my mouth.

It took her four words to destroy me.

It only took me two.


End file.
